The girls basketball team might be turning a corner. After an ice cold start to the season, the Saints have won three of their last five.

Their most recent victory was a 76 to 66 win over LCWM on Saturday night. It was the highest points total by the girls this season by a large margin. The next highest score they had was 61 points in a loss.

The girls are getting solid play from their seniors Aryn Eckstrom, Emily Hurley and Devon Flohrs and the teams sophomores and freshmen are coming on strong.

In particular, freshman Julia Beckius is becoming a force. She plays tough defense and has the instinct to drive to the basket. She’s either fearless, or too young to know any better - or both.

Against LCWM Julia had a season and career high 26.

Brenda Cervantes had 21 and Emily Hurley had 15.

Aryn Eckstrom had nine and she was key in breaking the game open early for the Saints.

In the first half Aryn hit back to back threes to really open up a comfortable lead for the Saints which they did not relinquish during the game.

Head Coach Adam Schroeder said, “Aryn hit some huge threes in the first half to give us the lead going into the locker room.”

LCWM made the mistake of leaving Aryn alone behind the arc. Given time to set up she can be deadly accurate.

It was also a great rebounding game for the Saints as four of the girls were in double figures in that category.

Emily and Brenda had double, doubles with Emily snaring 16 rebounds and Brenda had 12. Devon grabbed 14 had Aryn had 11.

Coach Schroeder said, “What a crazy game. At one point in the second half I told Coach Gary Blom that we are going to have to score 80 to win.

“We darn near did too. I thought our girls played pretty well over all. We came out with great energy and kept it throughout the game.

“We really never ran an offense we just pushed the ball and scored off transition. Hurley continues work hard posting up and rebounding. Brenda and Julia were our spark plugs again on both the offensive and defensive ends. Great section win.”

LCWM’s sophomore Megan Schroeder had 41 points in a losing effort. It looks like this young lady and the Saints young guns will be meeting several times in the coming years.

Page 2 of 2 - Before the big win, the Saints dropped a home game to the visiting Fairmont Cardinals by a score of 48 to 35.

As has happened many times this year, it was over in the first half. The Saints trailed 32-21 at the half. The defensive intensity picked up in the second half as Farimont only had 16 second half points.

Coach Schroeder said, “I thought last night we played defense very well in the second half. After allowing Fairmont 32 points in the first half, we kept them to 16 in the second half. We also rebounded very well.

“Our stats showed 19 offensive rebounds and 22 defensive rebounds with Hurley leading with 12 and Cervantes with nine. Eckstrom, Flohrs and Beckius each added five rebounds as well.”

Julia led with 17 and Aryn had seven.

As is the case with many of the losses this year the Saints had a poor shooting night. The team hit 24 percent of their shots and just ten percent of their three pointers.